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Monday Madness: Favorite Non-Original Cast Members

This Monday Madness, we’re looking at non-original cast members! Sometimes these characters replaced fan favorites who had left the show (for plot, personal, or business reasons), and often their presence upset the show’s dynamics. Many had a difficult time being accepted by long-time fans of the show, while with others it seemed like they had always been a part of the story. But, begrudgingly or with open arms, we learned to love most of these characters, and now you get to choose which ones are worthy of recognition!

This poll will be open for one week, and you can choose up to 10 of your favorite characters who joined their shows later on. Be sure to spread the word so your favorites will make it into the top 10!

Even though there are 50-some options on this list, I know there are dozens of characters I left out! You can nominate people I missed in the comments, and I may add them to the poll. I tried to limit this mostly to characters who joined after the complete first season, though with shorter-running shows I was more lenient. Want more of a say in who makes it onto the poll each week? Be sure to follow me on Twitter, since I usually ask for nominations for the next Monday Madness the weekend before the new poll. Please help out with nominations! There are only so many shows I can watch personally, so I’m counting on you to fill me in!

Without further ado, here’s the poll for this week’s Monday Madness! Voting ends around 1AM June 11th.

You missed two of my favorite non-originals probably because they are so new and they were very, very much a surprise to me because I was in love with whom they replaced, Marg Helgenberger and Melina Kanakaredes but Elisabeth Shue and Sela Ward are excellent on CSI and CSI-NY respectively.

I’d planned to add Jimmy, but then realized he’s in the first season. For a show that has completed nine seasons and already has several cast members in the poll, Jimmy was too close to the beginning to include.

Not too late! I usually close nominations around Thursdays, to give fans the weekend to drum up support and votes. Sorry I didn’t get to it yesterday, I was swamped with work. But she’s in the poll now!

You don’t have to comment to vote (2000+ voters and less than 30 comments at the moment!). Sometimes, if the site’s getting a lot of traffic, the poll won’t load properly the first time. Just refresh the page and it should work!

If someone on your computer or your internet network has already voted once, you shouldn’t be able to vote again, since the poll assumes it’s the same person. If you haven’t gotten a chance to vote, try using a different computer at a different location.

Sorry, there’s no way for you to go back and change your vote (and any system that would allow that would probably require voters to register and log in, which many internet users don’t enjoy).

I do try to get as many nominations in as I can before the poll begins, but late nominations will always have a disadvantage. So if you or someone else nominates a character after the poll starts, you’ll have to work extra hard to get the word out!

Through thick and thin, my heart has always been with this show (Supernatural) and this character (Castiel). No show has ever moved me more, and no character has ever made me fall so fast and so hard. My loyalty will live on for as long as i am here. No one has added more substance and character to a show like Misha Collins’ Castiel. He has made Supernatural bigger, better and most important… enjoyable, to watch!

I wanted to include Wesley (badly – I love his character!), but he was only a reoccurring guest on Buffy and joined Angel halfway through season one, too close to the beginning in a 5-season show for this poll.

Missing characters? Maybe Drusilla from Buffy (she was so crazy that it was impossible to not like her), Alaric from The Vampire Diaries, Bobby from Supernatural, Illyria from Angel, Richard (Tom Selleck) from Friends, Semir Gerkan (Erdogan Atalay) from Cobra 11 (it’s German TV series so you probably don’t know it but he joined the cast in the 3rd episode and now he is the only one left from season 1; he’s like the major character and the series has over 30 seasons!) .
Was Klinger in M*A*S*H from the very beginning? I can’t remember.

You’ve put Amy Pond of Doctor Who. That’s kinda….silly. The entire cast of of Doctor Who from the past 40+ years would qualify. Or if you’re only counting Since 2005, David Tennant would technically qualify. Despite being the title character. LOL

I never realized how few non-original cast members I actually like. It was hard to find 10. Most of them were from Buffy (Anya, Spike, Oz) and Angel (Fred, Lorne). My favorites are Ziva and Natalie, both of whom improved their shows greatly. Now if you had put Bobby Singer from Supernatural in there, he would have gotten my vote hands down. Not so much Cas.